A passive sentence puts the thing acted on into the subject slot and lets the doer fade away: The book is read rather than Someone reads the book. English builds this just one way — be + past participle (is read, was painted, will be sold). Swedish has three strategies, and the most idiomatic of them looks nothing like the English pattern. This page lays out all three at altitude and points you to the page that drills each. The headline: where English reaches for be + participle, Swedish usually reaches for a single suffixed word, the -s passive — and only switches to a periphrasis when it wants to highlight an event (bli) or a state (vara).
The three strategies in one view
| Strategy | Form | Example | Core meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| -s passive | verb + -s | Huset målas | neutral / general / habitual |
| bli-passive | bli
| Huset blev målat | a dynamic event, a change |
| vara-passive | vara
| Huset är målat | a resultant state (already done) |
Watch the same idea travel through all three:
Huset målas just nu.
The house is being painted right now. -s passive — neutral, the action in progress, doer unimportant.
Huset blev målat förra veckan.
The house got painted last week. bli-passive — a completed event, something happened to the house.
Huset är målat, så vi kan flytta in.
The house is painted (= in a painted state), so we can move in. vara-passive — the resulting state, not the event.
The English translation strains to keep them apart ("is being painted" / "got painted" / "is painted"), but the Swedish distinction is crisp and grammaticalized.
Strategy 1: the -s passive (the default)
Add -s to the verb. Boken läses (the book is read), dörrarna öppnas (the doors are opened), maten lagas (the food is prepared). This is the workhorse — the form you will see on signs, in instructions, recipes, rules, and neutral reporting. It is synthetic (one word, no helper verb), which is precisely why it feels so un-English.
Frukost serveras mellan sju och nio.
Breakfast is served between seven and nine. serveras — the -s passive, exactly where a hotel sign would use it.
Cyklar parkeras här.
Bicycles are parked here. parkeras — a rule/instruction, the home turf of the -s passive.
Full detail, across all tenses, on The -s Passive.
Strategy 2: the bli-passive (a dynamic event)
Use bli ("become / get") + the past participle, which agrees with the subject. Boken blev läst, bilen blev stulen, de blev valda. This foregrounds a change of state or an event — the English "got": got read, got stolen, got elected. It is the most English-like of the three (a helper verb + participle), which is exactly why learners overuse it.
Han blev vald till ordförande på årsmötet.
He was elected chair at the annual meeting. blev vald — an event with a result; the participle 'vald' agrees with 'han'.
Bilen blev stulen utanför stationen.
The car got stolen outside the station. blev stulen — a dynamic event befalling the car.
Full detail on The bli-Passive.
Strategy 3: the vara-passive (a resultant state)
Use vara ("be") + the past participle (again agreeing). Dörren är stängd, brevet är skrivet. This describes the state that results from an earlier action, not the action itself. Many grammarians argue it is not a "true" passive at all but simply vara + an adjective — and that is the best way to feel it: it answers "what condition is the thing in?" not "what was done to it?"
Dörren är stängd, så vi får ringa på.
The door is closed, so we'll have to ring the bell. är stängd — a state, the door's current condition.
Var inte orolig, allt är redan betalt.
Don't worry, everything is already paid for. är betalt — the resultant state of the bill.
Full detail on The vara-Passive.
The agent: the "av" phrase
In any of the three, you can name the doer with av ("by"). But Swedish — like English — usually leaves the agent out; one of the main reasons to go passive is to avoid naming the doer.
Boken skrevs av en okänd författare.
The book was written by an unknown author. av + agent, attached to the -s passive.
Hon blev biten av en hund.
She got bitten by a dog. av-phrase with the bli-passive.
Why Swedish prefers the synthetic passive
The crux for English speakers: your native pattern (be + participle) maps onto Swedish's least common option. The reflex to translate "the book is read" as boken är läst will often produce a state reading you didn't intend, or just sound stilted where a Swede would say boken läses. The fix is to make the -s passive your default and treat bli and vara as the marked choices — bli when you specifically mean an event, vara when you specifically mean a resulting state.
Rapporten skrivs nu och skickas på fredag.
The report is being written now and will be sent on Friday. Two -s passives — the natural, neutral choice; a learner might wrongly say 'blir skriven... blir skickad'.
The bli vs vara choice (event vs state) is drilled on Choosing the Passive: -s vs bli.
Common Mistakes
❌ Boken är läst varje dag i skolan.
Incorrect — 'är läst' is a state; for a habitual action use the -s passive.
✅ Boken läses varje dag i skolan.
The book is read every day at school.
❌ Huset blir målat varje sommar.
Less idiomatic — for a recurring/habitual passive, the -s form is natural; 'blir målat' wrongly frames each summer as one event.
✅ Huset målas varje sommar.
The house is painted every summer.
❌ Dörren blev stängd. (meaning 'the door is currently shut')
Incorrect for a STATE — 'blev stängd' means it GOT closed (an event).
✅ Dörren är stängd.
The door is closed (= shut right now).
❌ Boken skrevs vid en författare.
Incorrect — the agent takes 'av', not 'vid'.
✅ Boken skrevs av en författare.
The book was written by an author.
Key Takeaways
- Swedish has three passives: -s (synthetic, default/neutral), bli
- participle (a dynamic event), vara
- participle (a resultant state).
- participle (a dynamic event), vara
- The -s passive is the most common and the most un-English — make it your default rather than copying be
- participle.
- bli = "what happened" (event); vara = "what state is it in" (result). English collapses both into "is X-ed."
- The agent is an av-phrase, usually omitted.
- Both bli and vara take the agreeing past participle; the -s passive is just a suffix on the verb.
Related Topics
- The -s PassiveB1 — The synthetic -s passive adds -s to the verb across all tenses (present läses/öppnas, past lästes/öppnades, supine har lästs/öppnats, infinitive ska läsas). It is the DEFAULT Swedish passive — the form on signs, rules, recipes and instructions (Dörren öppnas automatiskt; Serveras kallt) — far more frequent than English speakers expect.
- The bli-PassiveB1 — The periphrastic bli-passive — bli + an agreeing past participle (Han blev vald; Bilen blev stulen) — marks a DYNAMIC event or change of state ('got/became X-ed'). It takes the agent with av (biten av en hund). Because it mirrors English 'be/get + participle' it gets overused: for habitual or general statements the -s passive is the idiomatic choice.
- The vara-Passive (Resultant State)B2 — How vara + past participle (dörren är stängd) describes a resultant STATE rather than an action, and how it contrasts sharply with the two dynamic passives — bli (an event: dörren blev stängd) and the -s form (an ongoing/habitual action: dörren stängs). Where English 'be + participle' is ambiguous, Swedish forces you to choose.
- -s Passive vs bli-Passive vs varaB2 — Swedish has three ways to say 'be + -ed', and the choice is aspectual: the -s passive (dörren öppnas) for general rules, habits and instructions; the bli-passive (han blev vald) for a single dynamic event with a result; and vara + participle (dörren är stängd) for the resulting state. The same English passive splits three ways, so this page gives you a flowchart and the same verb run through all three.